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looking for ways to turn rock into a hamburger that poisoned people more
slowly. And worst of all, there was his military service, portions of which
hung around his neck like a fifty-
pound weight.
What he'd done in the name of FIVE during the Consumer Rebellion would never
wash away. Those selfsame deeds had probably convinced the CEOs that he should
be selected to make the crossing. By the butchery he had performed, he had
proved his loyalty to FIVE.
And there was more butchery to come, an entire world to be subjugated and
slaughtered.
Connors was by no means a coward, but he had nothing against the people who'd
attacked the launch site. Their actions didn't anger him, and they couldn't
hurt him with their outdated weapons. As he exited the canyon, he realized he
didn't want to catch them; furthermore, he didn't want to have anything to do
with catching them.
How long would it take FIVE to fuck up this place? he asked himself. One
hundred years? Fifty years? If the mission was pure bullshit, why act like it
wasn't? Why play the game? Life was too precious and too short to be spent in
the service of a cause you didn't believe in.
When it occurred to him that he had the power to keep on going, that there was
no one and nothing that could stop him from doing exactly what he wanted, it
sent a chill up the back of his neck. The highway was visible as a straight
line running across the plain below. No matter how torn up it was, he could
traverse it in the
ATV.
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D2
A thousand miles.
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He could lose himself forever in this wild place, and when the ATV ran out of
fuel, he could walk. And when the battlesuit's power source failed, he would
abandon it.
FIVE would never find him. Who was he kidding? FIVE would never even look.
He thought about opening the comm link and saying goodbye, but he decided
against it. Why com- plicate things? In time they would come to understand his
reasons, if they didn't already.
When the gyro had landed back in the canyon, Connors started up the ATV and
pulled out from under the overpass. He headed north because that was the
direction of his home on the other Earth, and he was curious to see what it
looked like. As he drove off, he thought, stick a fork in me. I am done.
Chapter Twenty-Six
A second burst of laser cannon sent Ryan, Nara, Damm and Thrill Bill to their
bellies on the floor of the warlord's apartment. Succumbing to a wave of
impossible heat, the windows facing the street imploded. The bolt of green
screamed through the room, lancing the air three feet above their backs. If he
could have, Ryan would have tried to rip the floor apart to escape the
blistering inferno. But he couldn't move his arms or his legs, he was
paralyzed by heat shock.
When Ryan opened his eye, he saw that the room's front wall had a fifteen-foot
section missing. Windows, windowframes, wall studs, exterior sheathing, all
were gone, and flames licked up from the sheared edges. Behind him, the
opposite wall had a similar chunk taken out of it. The corridor beyond was on
fire and people were yelling. From outside, he heard different kinds of
explosions.
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Moving closer to the breached wall, he saw the smoke trails of shoulder-fired
rockets as they shot from the windows of buildings on either side of him. The
missiles exploded with authority among the APCs clustered at the mouth of the
ramp. The armored vehicles absorbed the direct hits and immediately returned
green fire.
"This is insane," Nara said. "What are those assholes at Mitsuki thinking of?
This is going to start another Global shooting war."
"Take a closer look, Captain," Thrill Bill said. "That's not Mitsuki down
there. It's
FIVE. And they want their boy toy back. The first place they're going to come
looking is right here. They know where I live. It would be best if we beat
feet before the ground troops start piling out of those APCs. Help yourself to
ordinance, as much as you can run with. We won't be coming back for more."
Ryan slung the submachine gun over one shoulder and grabbed a nylon rucksack.
It looked to him like all the conventional weapons fired the same round a
rimmed, .40-caliber full-metal jacket. He stuffed his pack with extra stick
mags for the subgun and power packs for the laser rifle. In an open crate were
more of the disk-shaped AP mines. He took a big handful. He also took a half
dozen grens.
Some were frags, some flash-stun. By the time he picked up one of the laser
rifles from the floor, he was seriously weighed down.
Thrill Bill waited while Damm and Nara struggled into the straps of their own
overstuffed rucksacks. The warlord wasn't taking anything extra, just a pulse
rifle.
"Got my own pack mules outside," he said.
They pushed out into the chaos of the hallway. A sheet of flame had crept up
the walls and was licking across the ceiling. The thick smoke made it very
hard to see what or who was underfoot. There were many dead, and their bodies
had been ruptured by the intense heat.
Thrill Bill shouted for his sec men. A half dozen stumbled forward, dazed,
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drenched with blood that wasn't their own. "We're evacuating the building," he
told them. "I'll break trail for us."
Ryan fell into step behind the warlord. As they ran down the corridor, the
throng
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of confused and frightened people flattened against the walls, giving them
room to pass. Over the tramp of heavy boots, Ryan heard the sounds of battle
raging out in the street. It was growing even more intense.
"How long can your people hold out?" Ryan called to the back of the warlord's
head.
"Until the last man falls," Thrill Bill said. "They know that surrender isn't
an option. It's suicide."
The hallway was jolted by a terrific blast that sent the warlord and Ryan
crashing to the floor. As they pushed up to their feet, there was another
grinding roar.
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